Where Morality Comes From

Theists tell us that morality comes from God, and some even go so far as to say that atheists can't explain why humans are moral. If we are solely the product of evolutionary processes, why is it that we often care deeply about those around us? Shouldn't we be selfish, concerned only with passing on our genes as efficiently as possible? As it turns out, no. Below I'll cover several intriguing phenomena that, when taken together, explain surprisingly well why we act the way we do.

The easiest concept to understand from an evolutionary perspective is parental investment. Fitness is defined as the ability to produce viable offspring, but this entails more than just surviving long enough to procreate. Once the offspring are born, they must in most cases be protected by one or both parents: for example, a father may go off to hunt while the mother protects her young. If the parents fail to do this, their offspring will die and their genes won't be passed on. Thus, natural selection molds the behavior of many species to form a powerful parent-child bond.

What about cases where the genetic relationship is less pronounced? For example, why would a worker bee care about building the hive if it doesn't get to procreate? Why would a prairie dog sound an alarm to warn its siblings of an approaching predator if this could cause it to be eaten? Kin selection provides the answer. Suppose animal A has a gene that causes it to help related animal B, even if doing so reduces A's reproductive fitness. Because B's genes are similar to A's, B is also likely to have the gene that caused A to do this. Since A has made B more likely to survive and reproduce, A's gene is more likely to be passed on indirectly through B.

Awww.

The first two concepts I've mentioned depend on the genetic relatedness of individuals, but many others do not. For example, there's reciprocal altruism, which is perhaps best summarized by the phrase "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine." When animal C does a favor for unrelated animal D, then D is expected to do a favor for C. If D does not oblige, then he is punished by C and the other members of the community. In this way, the two are motivated to help one another because their pact is mutually beneficial. In more advanced species, this idea works even with long time intervals and a wide range of "social currencies." For example, if C grooms D, then D might look out for predators on C's behalf several weeks down the line.

Among those species capable of complex cognition, a wide range of cooperative group behaviors are possible. For example, social predators hunt in packs: bottlenose dolphins will surround a school of fish, force it toward the surface, and take turns eating from it. Some dolphin groups off the coast of Africa even form alliances with fishermen, driving fish into the nets onshore in exchange for part of the catch. Sperm whales will defend themselves by creating a flower formation: vulnerable juveniles are protected in the center, surrounded by a circle of adults who face inward to create a barrier of powerful tails along the perimeter. And perhaps most touchingly, when one odontocete is near death, the others in its group will lift it to the surface to breathe.

We're already well on our way to explaining the moral sense we all share today. One additional idea to consider is that sufficiently advanced social creatures eventually form a culture. Individuals in such societies—and humans especially—are taught to hold certain values and beliefs. We learn them from our parents, from our friends, from our government and media, and even from complete strangers. These cultural values are so heavily reinforced that they become a part of us; this is known as enculturation. This idea may sound a little ominous, but in itself it's neither good nor bad: enculturation simply is.

Along with other values, cultures have a strong tendency to promote moral systems, because they help maintain order and are generally beneficial to society as a whole. These moral systems build upon our hard-wired altruistic and cooperative tendencies. Religion is one common source of moral values, but morality need not be so formal and ritualized. For example, the people of Scandinavia are largely nonreligious, but they seem by any measure to be just as moral as people in religious countries.

These phenomena give us a reasonably detailed understanding of the origin of morality in humans and other animals. However, it's important to realize that by explaining the evolutionary and cultural origins of morality, I'm not trying to derive an ought from an is. While these concepts tell us why we are moral, they say nothing in themselves about why we should be moral, or what moral truth is from an objective standpoint (if such a thing exists). These questions are better suited to philosophers, and I hope to examine them in depth—but that's for another day.

(Aside: I learned much of this information from a course I took on animal cognition. Book learnin' really can come in handy!)

A Relic of Skepticism

During the Christian apologetics course I took in my senior year of high school, I read Lee Strobel's popular book The Case for Faith, which attempts to answer some of the most common objections to Christianity. In Chapter 2, Strobel interviews apologist William Lane Craig about miracles, which is essentially just a pretext that allows Craig to present five arguments for the existence of God. They're all very well-known, so eventually I hope to cover each of them in more depth. However, I was doing some spring cleaning the other day and came across a paper I wrote related to this chapter, dated November of 2006. I was still a Christian at the time.

Unfortunately, I can't remember whether the assignment was to critique the chapter or just to respond to it. Either way, though, I think I did a pretty good job, especially considering that my knowledge of skeptical arguments at the time was basically nil. I don't agree with everything I wrote here—especially not the ultimate conclusion, of course—but overall I'm proud of how well I responded:

Craig makes five main arguments for the existence of a miracle-working God: He makes sense of the universe’s origin, the universe’s complexity, objective moral values, and the resurrection of Jesus, and He can immediately be experienced. When taken together as a whole, I believe these arguments provide sufficient evidence for one to rationally believe that such a God exists. However, there are certain individual parts of the argument that might appear weak, particularly to a skeptical atheist. I will examine each point to see how it holds up from an atheist’s perspective.

One important point to make is that because the book is designed to build the case for the Christian faith, it will generally be slanted towards the creationist/Christian side of the argument. Strobel goes to Craig without going to an evolutionist/atheist to hear their side of the story. For the sake of simplicity, I will assume unless otherwise noted that all the claims made in the book are correct and not biased or misleading in any way.

First, we have the claim that God makes sense of the universe’s origin. Craig states that whatever begins to exist has a cause, that the universe began to exist, and that the universe therefore has a cause. However, as I understand it, many scientists believe that the universe at the time of the Big Bang consisted of a tiny sphere that contained all of the matter in the universe. If we can assert that this sphere has been expanding and contracting for an infinite amount of time – that is, if there have been an infinite number of Big Bangs – it is possible that the universe never began to exist and never had a cause, and if so this part of the argument is negated.

I consider Craig’s second point, that God makes sense of the universe’s complexity, to be the most convincing. His facts regarding the low probability of the creation of life are hard evidence for a creator. However, I don’t think that Craig gives enough credit to the Many Worlds Hypothesis, the idea that in an infinite number of universes, one would probably be capable of sustaining life. In fact, to be more accurate, in an infinite number of universes, an infinite number would almost certainly be capable of sustaining life. While this hypothesis cannot be proven, I don’t believe it’s as outlandish as Craig claims it to be.

The third point Craig makes is that God makes sense of objective moral values. I believe that this is one of the weaker arguments. Humans might develop some objective moral values based on their personal realization of the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. This axiom is plain common sense: for example, you don’t like to have pain inflicted upon you, so it’s a safe bet that others don’t like having pain inflicted upon them. Naturally a person would consider anything that is done to him that he dislikes to be “wrong”, and the simple application of that standard to others essentially creates a universal standard of morals.

His fourth point is that God makes sense of the resurrection of Jesus. What bothers me here is that much of his evidence comes straight from the Bible itself, which many atheists see as somewhat or even completely unreliable. In proving the resurrection to unbelievers, non-Biblical historical evidence is absolutely crucial, and yet the argument is severely lacking in this area.

For the skeptical atheist, Craig’s final point is by far the weakest. When we claim to have experienced God, it is not inconceivable that our minds are playing tricks on us. Rather than the power of the Holy Spirit guiding us, it could just be a subconscious impulse that only appears to be coming from an outside source. The mind can heal the body simply by making us believe we are supposed to be healing (the placebo effect). If the mind has such power over the physical aspect of our lives, the same could be true for the spiritual aspect.

In spite of the weaknesses I have listed here, the five arguments as a whole provide enough solid evidence, perhaps not to prove, but at least to justify a belief in a miracle-working God. The points put forth, even with their flaws, make a convincing case that even the most intelligent and knowledgeable atheist would be hard pressed to refute entirely.

My memory from around this time is somewhat fuzzy, but I see this short paper as a kind of relic that gives me insight into my first grasps at skepticism. As I read each paragraph I can imagine my mind at work, parsing the arguments and searching for the holes. Based on what I've written here—and in spite of my conclusion—it's not at all surprising to me that I eventually ceased to believe.

Making Connections

I thought I'd give an update on how things are going on the school front. I've been attending Rational Thought @ UCSD's weekly "Rationally Speaking" meetings ever since this post, and I've met a lot of really nice, really smart people in the process. As I mentioned, they come from a variety of religious backgrounds and have expertise in many different areas, so it's interesting to get some other perspectives on atheism and rationality. Plus, those who weren't brought up in a religion can get new insight into the believer's mind from those who have. I've traded Twitter feeds with some of the RT members, and a couple have even linked to this blog, including Jonathan from Conversational Atheist. His site has a bunch of great articles and resources for talking with theists.

But the connections I've made aren't just limited to atheists. At RT's quarterly Ask an Atheist table (the same event that originally got me interested in the group) I met a guy named Neil. He's a Christian who preaches on campus now and then, and it turns out that he not only knows both of my parents, but actually converted my dad from Judaism to Christianity. I had heard my mom mention that she knew someone who preached at UCSD, but this comment never sank in until I met him. Although of course I see Neil's views as deeply misguided, he did seem like a sincere and kind person. Thankfully, he agreed to let me tell my family about my unbelief on my own time rather than tattling on me himself, so that's one potential disaster averted.

I'll be attending some additional RT events over the next two weeks. There's a talk on "Hate Speech in Religious Texts" on Thursday as part of the Hate-Free Campus Campaign. While the point of the meeting is to draw attention to intolerant verses in the Bible and Quran, in a way it's also meant as a criticism of the very idea of "hate speech." Really, all (legal) forms of speech should be allowed on campus, even those with hateful content. Following that is Atheism Awareness Week, five day's worth of events on the following topics:

• Monday: "What's an Atheist?"
• Tuesday: "Questioning Religion"
• Wednesday: "Improve Your Mental Health"
• Thursday: "Critical Thinking Workshop"
• Friday: "Parenting Beyond Belief"

I'll go to a few of these and write about it if anything of particular interest comes up. It's encouraging to be able to talk with friends about this stuff and not just read it from books and the Internet. The sense of community you get from spending time with like-minded people is certainly one of the reasons that religions are so successful, and in this regard it's great to see unbelievers follow suit.

The Barker–D'Souza Debate, Part 2

Rebuttals

Following the two 15-minute opening statements, Dan and Dinesh each got a 7-minute rebuttal. Dinesh said much of Dan's argument was irrelevant to how religion affects the real world. He pointed to Dan's history as a biblical literalist and called him an "atheist fundamentalist" who continued to take the Bible too literally. Dinesh dismissed Dan's Job argument by saying that Job was merely a fable, one that certainly did not teach that God is a moral monster. He argued that we should take religion seriously because 95% of the world experiences God in some way. He also told parable of his own: if there is a certain tribe in which most members claim to be well-acquainted with a man named Bill, then it would be silly for the other tribe members to claim he doesn't exist even if they have never met him. He ended by equating faith in the afterlife to faith in no afterlife, and called atheism "a happy-faced council of complete despair."

Dan said Dinesh committed the genetic fallacy in his opening statements by confusing origin with cause—the good things Dinesh associated with Christianity aren't Christian concepts any more than algebra is a Muslim concept. He quickly countered several of Dinesh's arguments: far from being caused by religion, the Enlightenment helped free us from it; no passage in the Bible advocates democracy; Jesus mentions slavery in Luke 14 but never criticizes it; abolitionists were called "infidels" by many Christians; the Bible preaches equality among Christians, but then turns around and echoes Old Testament denigration of Arabs; the Bible is anti-science in that it teaches Christians to "bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ." Finally, he said that Stalin and other atheist dictators did not commit their crimes in the name of atheism, that the Nazis were primarily Christians, and that Hitler was essentially on a religious crusade in his killing of Jews.

Next was a cross-examination segment where the two debaters addressed each other directly. Dinesh claimed that Hitler was feigning his religious views and cited the widely criticized pro-intelligent design book From Darwin to Hitler in support of the idea that Hitler was motivated by Darwinian principles. He added that Stalin was a Marxist who worked to get rid of religion, and atheism was a large part of Marxist ideology. Dan reiterated what he had said about Hitler's support for religion based on his writings, and responded that Stalin disagreed with the church's political views, but had no problem with religion itself. Later, Dinesh emphasized European diseases as the main cause of Native American deaths, while Dan focused on the Christian "liberators" brandishing Bibles and guns.

Endgame

During the Q&A, Dan was asked about schisms among atheists as compared to those in Christianity. He response was that disagreements among atheists are a sign of free thought, whereas Christianity claims absolute truth, and one would expect God to make that truth clear. Dinesh downplayed morality in animals by saying there was still scientific debate about it and claiming that rape is common among the apes. Later he claimed a discrepancy between Dan's claims of "knowing" about religious truth and concluding from "lack of evidence." Dan said the "knowing" applied to the falsity of Christianity and clarified his position as an agnostic atheist, which Dinesh didn't really seem to grasp. The debate moderator (conservative radio host Mark Larson) was generally quite charming and funny during the debate, but I thought it was out of place for him to "cut in line" to ask Dan whether he donates royalties from his old Christian music to charity, then quip something pro-life when Dan said he donated to a pro-choice group.

In the concluding remarks, Dinesh said science didn't have all the answers, cited a study claiming that the religious are more compassionate than the non-religious, and said that religious beliefs bring people happiness. Dan countered that one should ask "Does it work?" and not "Does it work for us?" He also reemphasized his Job illustration and contrasted religious and secular ethics: religious people need excuses (i.e. heaven and hell) to be good, while secular people use reason to draw conclusions about morality.

Analysis

My primary criticism of Dan's performance is that he focused a bit too much on the truth or falsity of religion as opposed to its effect on the world (although Dinesh did this a few times as well). I also thought he could have been more forceful in his rejection of "atheist atrocities." However, I liked that he emphasized religion's tendency to make other problems worse. That point was illustrated well when he countered Dinesh's claim that the Middle East conflict is a land dispute: while it's about land, religious differences are the driving force behind it.

The biggest flaw in Dinesh's argument was that he consistently confused correlation with causation. He failed to establish a causal link between religion and good, or between atheism and evil. Why does he claim Stalin's killing was motivated by Marxist atheism rather than his paranoid lust for power? Why does he credit Christianity for the Enlightenment, yet apparently not for the superstition that dominated the Middle Ages? His "95% experience God" argument is ridiculous too. First, the statistic is wrong: the estimates I found put theism at 77%, 84%, or 88% globally. Second, they "experience" radically different, mutually exclusive gods—if anything, it suggests a naturalistic explanation. His "Bill" story is also a horrible analogy because Bill has none of the extraordinary and unfalsifiable traits associated with God.

A few more errors: Dinesh's comparison between believers' faith and unbelievers' "faith" was a false equivalence that ignored burden of proof. "Science doesn't have all the answers" was a straw man that no one familiar with science would claim. "Rape is common in apes," even if true, is still compatible with their having a sense of morality. Finally, I appreciate how Dinesh matter-of-factly embraced evolution and rejected biblical literalism, although it probably made the evangelicals in the audience a little uneasy—a good thing for unbelievers, perhaps bad for him.

Overall, although Dinesh may have exceeded Dan in the charisma department, his arguments were riddled with errors and fallacies. Dan could have been a little more forceful and to the point, but nearly everything he said was perfectly logical. This was the first debate I've attended, and it was definitely well worth it. I learned some interesting facts here and there, and it gave me a better idea of the strengths and limitations of the debate format.

The Barker–D'Souza Debate, Part 1

The Price Center West ballroom was packed with about a thousand people for the Barker–D'Souza "Is Religion the Problem?" debate, including vocal advocates for both sides. A few even had to stand in the aisles since all the seats were filled. Once we found a spot to sit down, I noticed the giant image of the UCSD emblem projected on the wall in front of me:

"Let there be light," it says—a quote taken straight from Genesis 1:3. It's a great illustration of how thoroughly religion has pervaded our society, even worming its way into places where it has absolutely no business. Ironically, the school is using that verse in Genesis as a metaphor for the acquisition of knowledge. But as Dan Barker argued, and as a poster that some audience members were holding succinctly pointed out, the Bible is a terrible source to cite in support of this theme.

Before I get into specifics, I'll just say that it's hard for me to pass judgment on who "won" the debate. Since I already side with Dan on this issue, it would probably be more productive to ask someone who was sitting on the fence. It's also not necessarily the most important question, because "winning" is largely about which side was more convincing, which is a product of rhetoric and emotion as well as the actual arguments. Overall, though, I think Dan made a far more logical case than Dinesh, so I'm happy with the results.

Opening Statements

Dinesh opened by saying that he would stick to reason and not appeal to scripture for his arguments, and to his credit I think he honored that promise. First he argued that secular values such as compassion came into the world through Christianity, and secularism is therefore indebted to it. He said that in most cultures people care for no one outside of their family, recalling a saying from his homeland of India that "the tears of others are only water," and claimed Christianity was what changed this in the West. Slavery, he claimed, is a universal phenomenon that was opposed by Christians on the principle that all people are the same in God's eyes. He said that science first developed in a Christian culture, and many early scientists were Christians.

Second, Dinesh argued that atheism was more responsible than religion for the "crimes of history." He said that violent events from Christianity, like the Crusades and the Salem Witch Trials, were responsible for relatively few deaths. He characterized the Middle East conflict as a fight for land and the Northern Ireland conflict as a fight for power. Then he attributed "crimes of atheism" to dictators like Mao, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Kim Jong-il, who have killed over 100 million people in total. Finally he closed by comparing Christianity and atheism and saying that the former was a far better influence on society.

Dan started by making a distinction about the nature of the problem religion poses: it's not the deepest problem, but it's the broadest; it has a tendency to make other problems worse by clouding our moral judgment. He made four points about religion: it's untrue, divisive, morally compromising and unnecessary. It's untrue because there are no good evidence or arguments in favor of it, there's no fully accepted definition of God, it's not testable, there are no good defenses against arguments like the problem of evil, and the various holy books are flawed. It's divisive because it creates "in" and "out" groups who have an us-versus-them mentality.

He showed how religion made people morally compromised with a great illustration. When he asked how many thought it would be evil for Dinesh to kill a family and then say "the devil made me do it," most everyone raised their hands. He compared this to the book of Job, where God essentially kills an innocent man's entire family, destroys his belongings and strikes him with boils, and then says to the devil in Job 2:3, "you incited me against him to ruin him without cause." Far fewer people raised their hands to call this evil, and Dan cited this as an example of how religion compromises morals. He then applied this to Christians' opinions on political issues: their beliefs warp their perception of stem cell research, abortion rights, gay marriage and so on. Finally, he argued that religion is unnecessary, pointing out that highly secular countries like Denmark are better off by virtually all measures than most of the more religious countries.

So those were the opening statements. In a later post, I'll cover the rest of the debate and offer some analysis of my own.

Hangin' with Dan

The Rational Thought group got a chance to talk with Dan Barker before his debate tonight with Dinesh D'Souza. He seems like a calm, laid-back and very intelligent guy. He spoke a bit quietly, but I think I could hear a hint of a Native American accent; until today I never knew that was part of his heritage.

I learned that this is Dan's eighty-seventh (!) public debate and his sixth with Dinesh. He said he spent about a month preparing for it, even going so far as to re-read Dinesh's book, What's So Great About Christianity, which is somewhat related to the debate topic of "Is Religion the Problem?" He said that when he's talked privately with Dinesh, he's fairly nice and definitely a true believer. Apparently Dinesh accepts evolution and condemns biblical literalism, and seems to believe in an eclectic mixture of Christian doctrines. From what I've seen of him previously, his debating style seems superficially cordial but unpleasantly slick.

Dan had some insightful things to say about the debating format as well. He said you could spend a lot of time preparing for debate, but you may use very little of that preparation if your opponent raises unexpected points. In terms of dealing with ad hominem attacks, he said one can tell the audience explicitly that the opponent can't counter the arguments, so he's making character attacks instead.

I got to hear a few funny debate stories as well. Dan mentioned a debate in which his opponent asked the audience to close their eyes and "feel the Holy Spirit" while he played three minutes of religious music. In response, Dan identified the patterns of notes within the piece of music and said that it was an arrangement that composers often use when they want to evoke strong emotions in the listeners. "It was a very pretty piece of music," he'd said, "but I didn't feel the Holy Spirit." I've heard plenty of appeals to emotion before, but never such a blatant and extended one in a debate setting.

The head of Rational Thought, Jonathan, also told a story about a debate he'd had where after a series of questions, he got his opponent to admit that he fully expected a scab on Jonathan's arm to be healed through the power of prayer. The opponent and several of his supporters prayed over the scab for a full minute, and when (surprise!) it failed to heal, the opponent said, "Well, does it at least feel any better?" After the debate he seemed bewildered that it hadn't worked, suggested it might get better in a day or two, and told Jonathan he'd keep praying for it.

We discussed free speech on college campuses, religion in politics and several other topics as well. It was a great experience overall. I wasn't planning to attend the debate due to a prior engagement, but now I think I will unless I get confirmation that it's being filmed.

Update: It was being filmed. I went anyway. Will comment later.

Coffee and Conversation, Meeting #1

The Coffee and Conversation meeting that I wrote about here went pretty well. There were about ten of us, from a variety of different religious backgrounds, including Jewish, Catholic, New Age, Jehovah's Witness, and non-religious. We discussed several topics related to atheism and skepticism, and they had brought along a couple of booklets: a Baloney Detection Kit (video covering part of it here) and a guide to How to Debate a Creationist. One person asked me what was keeping me from fully embracing the atheist position, and I couldn't give a very good answer. I think it's more my fear of the societal associations with the term than an actual difference in worldview. In other words, I'm pretty much an atheist and am just reluctant to admit it.

Toward the end of the discussion I mentioned my situation – the fact that I'm living with my Christian family, and that I'm really worried about how they'll react once I reveal my nonbelief to them. One of them gave me some very good advice: trying to go about it slowly, starting with a vague mention of doubts, will only make it more difficult. They would probably try to get me into some Christian counseling or something. Instead I break it to them all at once, possibly with a one-page written explanation of why I no longer believe.

Before I left they recommended I read books by Dawkins and Hitchens, and specifically Sam Harris' The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Overall, the group confirmed my initial impression: they were intelligent, articulate, friendly and supportive. I definitely plan to attend meetings in the future.

Developments at UCSD

I have two quick things to talk about in terms of happenings at UCSD. First, on March 7, Dan Barker is debating Dinesh D'Souza on the question, "Is Religion the Problem?". Unfortunately, it's happening at exactly the same time as a club meeting of mine, and I probably won't be able to make it, but there's a fairly good chance it'll be filmed and uploaded to YouTube. I'll watch it and give my commentary if and when that happens. (My sister's Bible teacher also informed her of a creation-evolution debate supposedly happening at UCSD in April. I've searched online and can't find anything on it, so he may have been mistaken.)

Also! Rational Thought at UCSD put out an "Ask an Atheist" table on Library Walk today (ironically, with music from a worship concert blaring in the background). The booth was decorated with flyers asking good, provocative questions that I'm sure many theists wonder about (e.g. "What will you be thinking about on your deathbed?" and "Why be moral when no one is looking?"). I signed up for their e-mail list to get some information about upcoming events and such. I also asked one guy if he had any advice about "coming out" to my friends and family about my unbelief. He said he didn't have any experience with that, but he could probably put me in contact with someone who did. Overall, they seemed like a very intelligent, articulate and friendly bunch, and I wouldn't at all mind going to one of their meetings sometime.

Update: I got an invite to a "Coffee and Conversation" meeting on Monday at six. I'm generally very introverted when it comes to discussion groups, but I think I'll try it out. If anything comes of it, I'll write about it here.